Chapter Two: "Festive Heirs"

Merry pulled back a moment later and rested his hands on Pippin’s shoulders again, bringing their foreheads together. “And that’s why we’e got to help him, because he misses Bilbo so much, and he doesn’t have nay other real family,” he informed Pippin with certainty. “Did you know that Frodo doesn’t think he shall ever like birthday parties anymore?”

“But—“ Pippin piped up, confused as he glancd out from beneath Merry’s arms to where he could see his sister Pearl and some other tween lasses near her age involved in a dance that had them twining a ribbon about a pole.

Merry ignored him and kept talking. “Why, he’d even forgotten it would be Pearl’s birthday while we were here when he agreed to come along on this visit! And a lucky thing, too, or I would never have got him to come to this party,” Merry continued, sounding quite satisfied with himself.

“But,” Pippin’s brow furrowed again. “I thought he didn’t like birthday parties anymore. You just said!” he poined out crossly and stomped his foot.

Merry’s eyes wandered toward the trees again. “Sometimes, Pip, a hobbit is confused and just doesn’t know what’s good for him,” he said quietly, then turned back to look at his younger cousin to say, “That’s why I have to help Frodo. So I might need to spend some extra time with him on this trip, all right?”

“I can help!” Pippin’s face lit up as he responded eagerly. “I know lots of fun things to do! We can make Frodo happy and we can go bird’s nesting and skip stones and have picnics and go berrying and—“

“Pip,” Merry had said some moments before, and Pippin trailed off.

Merry sighed. “Those things all do sound very fun,” he said kindly, “and perhaps we can do some of them.” He looked toward the trees again. “But Frodo is in a rather quiet mood a lot of the time right now, I’m afraid, and it’s rather hard to get him to run about and play. I think he likes it when I just sit quiet with him and talk, or read, sometimes,” he said contemplatively, almost to himself, then looked into Pippin’s eyes to ask, “You understand now, don’t you?”

Pippin nodded, then looked at the ground as he whispered, “You have to help Frodo.”

“That’s right.” Merry laughed and reached over to the food table to snag a large handful of biscuits, plus a strawberry.

“Here.” He pressed the biscuits into Pippin’s hands, and popped the berry into his mouth. “You’ve spent enough time by the food tables, you shold get something for it,” he said, and then laguhed again and tousled Pippin’s curls as he got up to head toward the trees. “You look like a holly bush, abloom with its red berry come Yule,” he snickered as he walked away.

Pippin, his hands ful of biscuits and his mouth full of bright red strawberry, couldn’t respond as he glanced down his front at his dark green velvet breeches and the matching jacket Mama insisted he kep buttoned, as it was nae summer yet, she said. He shrugged inwardly. Whether or no Merry thought he looked like shrubbery, ‘twas no reason to waste a perfectly fine berry.

“So?” Frodo asked languidly from where he lay on his back beneath a tree, letting the cheese sauce dribble into his mouth off a delicate, crisped pastry, the dough originally coated only in sugar and rolled into the openwork shape of a rose. “Did you make him eat the sauced biscuits and the bread that fell into the berry juice, as punishment for running into you?”

“You don’t seem to be objecting to the taste,” Merry commented as he sat next to Frodo and retrieved the other plate. Both looked suspiciously picked over. He would have to make another run back to the tables soon, he could see. He looked in that direction in time to see Pippin scurrying away, toward where some of the older relatives sat.

“He knows what he did wrong,” Merry told Frodo, picking up a bit of particularly pungent cheese for which Paladin had a fondness and popping it in his mouth.

“Ah,” Frodo said, “but do you?”

Merry stared at him around a mouthful.

Frodo sighed. “I have worked it out, you know, dear Merry. You did indeed know that it would be Pearl’s birthday while we visited, and that there would be a party we would be expected to attend. And you decided that we should, and we would, even knowing how I currently feel about such parties, and without asking me.”

A silence stretched between them as Merry stared at the plate on his lap and Frodo stared in turn at his younger cousin.

“Well, Merry?” he finally prompted. “Why?”

“You need to cheer up,” Merry finally said defiantly, corssing his arms over his chest and staring back at Frodo with his chin jutting out. “I know Bilbo’s gone and that you’re sad he left and all, but you can’t stop doing everything cheerful that a proper hobbit should, just because he’s gone.”

Frodo started to speak, but Merry continued past the interruption. “I’ll be twenty this Winterfilth, a tweenager, and my Dad says he’s going to help me start learning more about taking care of things, and of hobbits. I don’t intend to have any acting so sad as you when I’m Master if I can help it, and I mean to!”

Frodo fought against amusement, despair, admiration and exasperation before he answered in a logical tone. “But, Merry, it’s still your grandfather who’s Master, and I’m not your responsibility.”

“You’ll always be as much of a Bucklander as anyone to me,” Merry said stoutly, choosing to ignore the rest of Frodo’s statement for the time being. His eyes strayed briefly to the plates of food, but he forced them back onto Frodo with resolve. “And I should like you to stop being so sad!” he added in a tone of pretween resolve.

“Oh, Merry,” Frodo sighed, lying back upon the grass and placing his arm over his eyes. “You don’t understand,” he uttered heavily.

Merry studied the grass beside his knees when he heard the next words, though, sighed under Frodo’s breath as they were, he doubtless wasn’t meant to:

“And you never will.”

He did not, however, hear the two other words that accompanied that sentiment:

“I hope.”